Humpty Doo

Humpty DooSmall town between Darwin and Kakadu.
Humpty Doo lies 47 kms from Darwin on the Arnhem Highway. It is
famous for the fact that in the 1950s it was one of the great
failed postwar agricultural experiments.

Ever since the German botanist Dr. Maurice Holtze had carried
out experiments in Darwin in the 1870s and 1880s it was believed
that the future of the Northern Territory probably lay in its
ability to grow tropical crops. Holtze had experimented with
everything from rubber to sugar and rice.

The goldrushes to the Northern Territory in the 1880s had
brought an influx of Chinese miners and the area around Humpty Doo
had been used to grow rice to satisfy this demand. The rice had
grown without too many problems but there had been no further
interest.

Then, in 1954, after considerable CSIRO experimentation, a joint
Australia-US company known as Territory Rice Ltd was established.
The plan was to irrigate the subcoastal plain of the Adelaide River
and produce a commercial rice crop. The theory looked good. The
practice was a total disaster.

In 1955-56 Territory Rice Ltd received agricultural leases of
303 000 hectares of land on the floodplain. Everything that could
go wrong did go wrong. Wild buffaloes moved in and started
destroying the paddies and eating the crop. Rats appeared and
wrought havoc. The birds consumed the seeds as quickly as the
company could plant them. The soil proved to be too saline and the
drainage was inadequate. Add to all these problems the weakness of
the management of the project and by 1959 the paddy fields had been
abandoned. The management could find no one else to take over the
leases so in 1962 they forfeited their land to the government.

Today Humpty Doo looks like the fringe area of any large
Australian city. It is a combination of market gardening, low level
servicing for tourists travelling to Kakadu and a small local
shopping area. Agricultural produce from the area is shipped out
through the port of Darwin while the town's proximity to Darwin has
attracted people who want to live beyond the city limits but within
easy commuting distance.

Things to see:

Humpty Doo Uniting Church
The Humpty Doo Uniting Church (turn off the Arnhem Highway in
Humpty Doo at the sign which says 'Church') is an unusual open air
church without walls.

Boxing Croc
The Australian obsession with 'big' tourist attractions finds one
of its most hilarious manifestations in 'The Boxing Croc' on the
Arnhem Highway.

Fogg Dam
Fogg Dam, which was constructed in the 1950s as part of the Humpty
Doo project and is now a popular birdwatching location.

Graeme Gow's Reptile World
Graeme Gow's Reptile World which boasts no fewer than 300 different
species of snake including most of Australia's deadliest
varieties.